Mass distributed advertising pieces have been increasingly used by advertisers to sell their products. The distribution of these pieces, whether by mail or by insertion in newspapers or magazines, has become an effective advertising practice.
In many mailings, the advertising material is personalized by adding the name of the person who is to receive the material. For example, mailings to members of associations, or other groups such as credit card holders, or selected types of customer groups, have included personalized solicitation letters. Often, one or more other types of pieces, such as two page advertising inserts, or an order blank, or return envelope, are also included in the mailing.
These additional pieces have increased the effectiveness of the promotion. The additional pieces, although adding versatility to the advertiser promotion, frequently require additional manufacturing steps which can add significantly to the cost of producing the advertising item.
This is particularly true for advertising packets. These items have very many, usually small individual pieces, such as redemption coupons. Production requirements such as collating of the multiple pieces in a common set, as well as packaging the set using existing production techniques usually will make the unit price too high for a cost effective mass distributable advertising piece.
It has not been possible to effectively personalize or to mark the pieces of such a packet. There is a need for this capability, since it will make it possible to direct a promotion to specific individuals or to a given market segment to maximize response to the promotion. In terms of the advertising dollar, the higher response rate will justify a higher unit cost for the item.